Swim & Dive: Men’s team defeats Virginia Tech in final event

Connor Imes
Thu, 02 Nov 2023 02:43:38 +0000
Instagram Page, News, Sports, Swimming & Diving, Alex Axon, Alex Metzler, Alex Quach, Bill Dorenkott, Bill Wadley, Billy Regan, Bob Fick, Brandon Day, Buckeye diving, Buckeye swimming, Caleb Ellis, Carson Smith, Chachi Gustafson, Charlie Clark, Clayton Chaplin, Daniel Baltes, Dorenkott, Evan Fentress, Fabio Dalu, Guillermo Cepeda Balboa, Hudson McDaniel, Ian Mikesell, Jack Burroughs, Jack Matthews, Jacob Fielding, James Ward, Jay Johnson, Jean-Pierre Khouzam [and 29 more]

Ohio State Buckeyes Men’s Swimming and Diving team defeats Virginia Tech.
Credit: Ohio State Athletics

The Buckeyes nearly threw the meet away at the last second, and it took some heroics to win it.

Ohio State’s men’s and women’s swim and dive teams both won their first meet of the season against Virginia Tech Saturday at the McCorkle Aquatic Pavilion in Columbus.

“As I said yesterday, first step in a journey and the long and the short is we got to get better,” head swim coach Bill Dorenkott said. “I love racing these guys because they’re well coached and they’re tough. I just have to press pause for 24 hours and then revisit what went well and where we need to get better.”?

The women’s team won by a landslide, defeating the Hokies 226.0 to 135.0, but struggled on day two, as it was outscored 93.0 to 82.0.

The men’s team, however, struggled on both days but managed to save itself at the very end to hold on to the win by a score of 193.5 to 178.5.

In the final event, the men’s 400 free relay, Virginia Tech needed to finish first and second to win the meet, and it had exactly that going into the race’s final leg.

That didn’t seem to bother Ohio State’s Ruslan Gaziev, as the fifth-year closed the gap by the final turn and fought for every inch down the final stretch, finishing just 0.05 seconds ahead of Virginia Tech’s Nico Garcia Saiz and 0.55 seconds ahead of Virginia Tech’s Lee Naber to seal the victory for the Buckeyes.

“I knew I was going to win before I dove in because I knew that they had to split the relays. They front-loaded both relays A and B with their best guys,” Gaziev said.

Had it been that Virginia Tech only needed to place first, it could’ve loaded one relay team with all of their best guys. However, since the Hokies needed to finish first and second, they had to split them up to better their odds of multiple top-two finishes.

“We did our best to give the meet away, Virginia Tech way outswam us. The only reason it was a meet is because our divers were good,” Dorenkott said.

Ohio State had at least two of the top three finishers in every event and had the top finisher in all of them, scoring a lot of points for the Buckeyes in what ended up being a very close finish to the meet.

“It’s so much fun getting to be around the freshmen as a fifth-year because I feel like a parent,” fifth-year Janie Boyle said. “They were definitely nervous their first meet, who wouldn’t be? But Michelle went out there, crushed [the] 3 meter. Tyler went out there, crushed [the] 1 meter. They are going to be so good when postseason goes around.”?

This is the third straight win for the men’s team over the Hokies and the fifth straight for the women’s team.

The Buckeye’s next meet is Friday at home versus the University of Akron at 5 p.m.